> Conservatives Still Struggling With Basic Concepts Of Social Media

The New York Times:

The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, is a direct response to Facebook’s and Twitter’s bans of former President Donald J. Trump in January. In addition to the fines for barring candidates, it makes it illegal to prevent some news outlets from posting to their platforms in response to the contents of their stories.

Let’s be clear and up front about this: this is exactly what this is about.

Mr. DeSantis said signing the bill, which is likely to face a constitutional challenge, meant that Floridians would be “guaranteed protection against the Silicon Valley elites.” “If Big Tech censors enforce rules inconsistently, to discriminate in favor of the dominant Silicon Valley ideology, they will now be held accountable,” he said in a statement. The bill is part of a broader push among conservative state legislatures to crack down on the ability of tech companies to manage posts on their platforms. The political efforts took off after Mr. Trump was barred after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Lawmakers around the country have echoed Mr. Trump’s accusations that the companies are biased against conservative personalities and publications, even though those accounts often thrive online.

These guys don’t understand how these platforms work and that it’s no longer as simple as a follower count. There’s algorithms in place that measure engagement and determine how populare (or not) a post is. Sure, millions of people may follow their accounts but if the content isn’t shared then engagement is considered low and it simply doesn’t get exposure. Even prominent YouTubers have trouble with monetization due to algorithm shifts. Guys like DeSantis also don’t seem to realize that what they’re promoting largely isn’t popular either. It may be with certain groups of people, large swaths of the country even, but not the demographic using these platforms regularly. The people who legitimately follow them aside, the rest are either some kind of journalist, activist, or, most likely, just there for the LOLz. So it’s not that they’re being silenced per se, its just that people really just don’t like them. Companies like Facebook et al dont want to throw people off. They want the traffic and engagement people like Trump bring.

Just like you can’t make a bomb threat online without your account being taken down it’s probably not a good idea to threaten to overthrow the government either.

I’d also argue that most sane people, of any demographic, just don’t want to overthrow the government regardless of how they feel about it.

The law says the platforms cannot take down or otherwise prioritize content from a “journalistic enterprise” that reaches a certain size. Conservatives were outraged last year when Facebook and Twitter limited the reach of a New York Post article about the contents of a laptop it said belonged to Hunter Biden, the younger son of President Biden.

The New York Post is certainly an enterprise. Journalistic? Ehh not so much.

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> Facebook Still Crying Over Apple’s iOS 14.5 App Tracking Transparency

William Gallagher, Apple Insider:

“While thinly veiled as a privacy-protecting measure, Apple’s iOS 14 policy changes harm the entire ad-supported ecosystem— from developers to advertisers to end consumers,” they write in the full paper. “By sharply limiting the ability of third-party apps to create value through personalized advertising, Apple’s policy changes undermine competition.”

Somebody let me know when they find the “value” that’s in it for me in the creepy-stalky “personalized” advertising.

Rather than an academic study of an issue, the paper reads as a position statement. It is critical of Apple for not having “convincing explanations,” for example, but the authors seemingly did not ask Apple for any. It does briefly attempt to put App Tracking Transparency in a wider context of what else is happening with privacy in the industry. However, it chiefly does so in a damning criticism of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulations. The authors state that the EU’s GDPR regulatory measures, meant to reduce spam sent to the public, have “had a negative effect on venture capital investment.” It connects this to Apple’s ATT by stating that any system that requires users to choose to opt-in to advertising could “chill innovation and reduce welfare to consumers.”

Aww. Poor Facebook. Maybe they should’ve been up front about what they were doing with all that data.

Oh well, too late now. Fuck em.

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> America’s Broadband Gap Is Astounding When You Actually See It

Because it’s measuring usage, this data doesn’t distinguish between people who can’t buy a fast connection and people who simply can’t afford one, and in other places, you can see the connectivity problem as one more consequence of accumulated neglect. In Arizona, Apache County stands out as a long thin stripe in the northeast corner of the state, showing just 5 percent broadband usage. More than 70,000 people live there, most of them members of the Navajo, Apache, or Zuni tribes. According to the census, more than 23,000 of them are living in poverty, by far the highest poverty rate in the state. Across the border, San Juan County, New Mexico, shows 29 percent broadband usage, so the problem isn’t that the county is too remote or that the terrain is too difficult to manage. Apache County is simply poor, and the slow progress of the broadband buildout seems like a promise it will stay that way.

Looking at this map is fascinating. The fact that a stable fiber connection of at least 500 mb/s isn’t available to every American at a reasonable cost is appalling in 2021.

You can’t even apply for jobs in this world without an internet connection.

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> Deepfakes might actually be useful in making international TV and film more accessible. Maybe. Hopefully.

What exactly is lost in translation when TV shows and films are subbed or dubbed into a new language? It’s a hard question to answer, but for the team at AI startup Flawless, it may be one we don’t have to think about in the future. The company claims it has the solution to this particular language barrier; a technical innovation that could help TV shows and films effortlessly reach new markets around the world: deepfake dubs. We often think of deepfakes as manipulating the entire image of a person or scene, but Flawless’ technology focuses on just a single element: the mouth. Customers feed the company’s software with video from a film or TV show along with dubbed dialogue recorded by humans. Flawless’ machine learning models then create new lip movements that match the translated speech and paste them automatically onto the actor’s head. “When someone’s watching this dubbed footage, they’re not jolted out of the performance by a jarring word or a mistimed mouth movement,” Flawless’ co-founder Nick Lynes tells The Verge. “It’s all about retaining the performance and retaining the original style.”

As somebody who watched a ton of anime back in the day, I got very used to subtitles. In animation I never really cared about mouth movements and things. Its drawings so it’s almost never right anyway. Most of the time though things would be changed from the original Japanese version and that was always the issue. The animated Street Fighter movie from 1994 is probably the most famous one from my friend group. Different music, lines were changed, and scenes were cut. And who can forget the old 70’s Kung Fu movies from back in the day that were so famously badly dubbed they became a whole genre of their own.

Today, I still watch a ton of international TV and film thanks to Netflix, I still prefer subtitles. Often the dubbing is so bad in terms of acting that it’s laughable. That’s what’s distracting about dubs. The person reading the english either isn’t acting or is acting badly.

The company hopes that preserving the original performance will be appealing to filmmakers who want to retain the magic of their original casting. Lynes gives the example of the 2020 Oscar award-wining Danish film Another Round, which stars Mads Mikkelsen as one of a group of teachers who experiment with low-level alcoholism to see if it improves their lives. After its success at home and on the international award circuit, the film is set to be remade for English-language audiences with Leonardo DiCaprio in the main role. The news sparked discussion about the value of such remakes. Is the Danish drinking culture that forms the film’s backbone really so alien to American audiences that a remake is required? Is Mikkelsen, an actor who’s appeared in such mainstream fare as Hannibal, Doctor Strange, and Rogue One, such an unknown that he can’t attract viewers in the US? And is the “one-inch barrier” of subtitles (to quote Parasite director Bong Joon Ho) simply too much for audiences to overcome?

I’ve never understood this. I get that subtitles can be a pain, I really do. But to completely recast and reshoot a film for English audiences… I get the feeling this is a distinctly American thing because Americans are lazy and don’t like to read. They also need complex plots simplified for them. Case in point: the Swedish film Let the Right In was fantastic in its original Swedish form. The plot? Not obvious. The simplified American version? Terrible. It lost the complexity and mystery that made the Swedish version great.

Maybe there are just certain things that aren’t for Americans. After all, Breaking Bad, considered to be one of the best modern American shows, doesn’t quite work in other developed countries and thus is distinctly American.

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> Two Factor Authentication Should Be The Default On Everything

One of the best ways to protect your account from a breached or bad password is by having a second form of verification in place – another way for your account to confirm it is really you logging in. Google has been doing this for years, ensuring that your Google Account is protected by multiple layers of verification. Today we ask people who have enrolled in two-step verification (2SV) to confirm it’s really them with a simple tap via a Google prompt on their phone whenever they sign in. Soon we’ll start automatically enrolling users in 2SV if their accounts are appropriately configured. (You can check the status of your account in our Security Checkup). Using their mobile device to sign in gives people a safer and more secure authentication experience than passwords alone.

This is fantastic news. So many people have GMail accounts or some kind of Google account that this should’ve been the default a long time ago. Now let’s hope more companies follow suit.

Two factor authentication is so important in today’s world. It’s surprising to me how many people simply don’t use it. Even people I know that are tech savvy and know better. Your email account is so important. Protect it. Every day I browse r/modernwarfare, r/CODWarzone or r/blackopscoldwar and someone’s account was hacked and every time there was no two factor authentication on either the Activision account or the email. Usually neither one of them had it on.

2FA stopped my Instagram account from being hacked this week. I got two emails requesting a password change (which failed) and then the text message stopped them dead in their tracks. Turn that shit on and turn it on everywhere.

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> Thoughts on the Apple Spring Loaded Event

There were a few interesting things talked about at the Apple event on Tuesday.

A few smaller announcements but a couple that were pretty big given some of the things going on around them.

Let’s talk about the small stuff first.

PODCASTS:

The podcasts update is pretty welcome. The app itself has always felt like an odd app out compared to Music and to me the update puts it in parity, finally.

The ability to support your favorite creator is nice too since there are more people than ever doing content creation and for a good portion of them it’s their full time job.

AIRTAGS:

I’ve long contemplated getting a Tile since I have a tendency to misplace my keys and a small bag I use for the gym but I’ve always held off because I really don’t want or need yet another app that’s tied to just one specific thing. Plus they’ve always seemed a little big and bulky. Too bulky for my keys. Airtags take those pain points away.

Find My has always sort of been this weird part anti theft for your Apple stuff and part friend locator but never really useful. Its one of those things that everyone uses but never really talks about. I’m glad to see it finally be more useful aside from locating your Apple stuff as it’s something that’s been very underrated about iPhones and Apple stuff in general for a really long time.

Apple’s approach to privacy is also key here. Nothing is identifiable to either the user (unless it’s your thing) nor Apple. The Unwanted Tag detection along with the audible alert ensures another user is not unwillingly tracked but the big thing is the rotating identifier. It’s a great feature that allows other users to find and notify the owner that a lost item is found, along with its location, so it can be retrieved. Of course the finder could notify the owner so long as the owner left a way to be contacted in the tag. This is one of those things that, in 2021, sets Apple apart from everyone else and makes me willing to pay the Apple tax vs something like the Tile, even if it is cheaper.

APPLE TV:

I admittedly haven’t watched a lot of things on Apple TV+. The Morning Show and For All Mankind are basically it. But that crack at the Jets in the Ted Lasso trailer? Priceless.

That said the price for the Apple TV box is starting to border on the absurd, at least for the HD version. This thing should start to be in the $99 price range at most but certainly not $150. Trust me, I have two of them in my house. I love them and would probably replace them but only because I’ve owned them in the past.

Perhaps, given the feature set for the 4k box, a $200 price tag is justifiable. The most notable new feature, that as far as I can tell for now is only on the 4k box, is the color balance. Setting the proper color according to industry standards allows us, the viewer, to see tv and film as the artist intended. Most TV panels are not color accurate and most people don’t bother to calibrate them properly if at all. It’s probably the best thing Apple has done tot he Apple TV box in a while and I’m hoping this makes its way down to the HD box as well.

The remote update is a godsend. Glad to see they replaced the menu button with a back button since it was misleading in the current way tvOS works. That power button will be useful too, assuming it works with literally every TV, as I no longer use my cable box for anything, and my TV remote is basically a glorified power button at this point. It’s also interesting they brought back the circle from the original Apple TV remote. Functionally it looks like it should be better but lets see what happens in the real world.

MACS:

The colors are nice and really harken back to the iMacs of yesteryear. The old, original, colorful G3 ones from 1998 when the Mac was meant to be more fun and user friendly. I love the new square/rectangle design too. If the colors look back to the fun colors of 98, the screen looks back to the initial redesign of 2002. Between that and the fact the screen is once again a regular 24 inch screen and 4k on top of it. The 24 inch screen is still small but at least its a standard size making paring it with a second display much more palatable in a multimonitor setup.

The magnetic power cable is interesting and I can only imagine removing the brick from inside had something to so with the thinness of the new iMac, which seems not too far off from the current MacBook Pro. The ethernet port on the power brick is definitely a neat thing and I’m glad they didn’t just force wifi on those of use that still prefer or need a cable. Even though this is something that’s been possible since the launch of the M1 MacBook Pro and Air, it’s nice to see Apple (sort of) bring gaming to the desktop if only in the casual sense now that the M1 is on the desktop as well. It’s also nice to see they finally updated the magic keyboards for TouchID. It’s one of those #Finally moments but I can’t help but wonder if this was one of those Intel limitations they either didn’t want to work around or couldn’t for security reasons. Speaking of M1 and Intel…

Tell me your competition sucks without telling me your competition sucks. That’s exactly what Apple did by mentioning the previous iMac design. While they mentioned thermals at the November 10th Event, they never make a big deal of it. With the Air, it was silent and fanless. For the Mini they mention thermals but only in the “it stays cool so it can run at max power longer” kind of way. For the MacBook Pro it was about battery life. All of it was typical marketing speak and never, really, do they directly mention thermals or power draw. This time though they made sure to make their point and went right for the thermals right out of the gate, essentially saying “Our previous chips wouldn’t let us do this because their design is archaic and power hungry, and as a result they couldn’t get their thermals under control.” Oof. Not only did Apple just do a great job in revealing a new product design, but they also gave a masterclass in throwing shade.

IPAD PRO:

There’s no denying that the new display is awesome the new front camera tracking system is incredible to have on something like an iPad and I there’s no doubt I’d love to have that on my phone. USB-C now including Thunderbolt is a welcome addition as well and helps give it that feature parity with macs and PCs for transferring large amounts of data from one device to another should the need arise.

The real story here though is the M1 now in the iPad Pro as well as Macs. Having an M1 in an iPad people are going to immediately want to compare it to a Surface or start to request that Apple put macOS on there. And let’s not forget about the conspiracy theories that this is happening even though Apple says it isn’t. Apple says they’ll never bring macOS to the iPad. I still believe that. Why? Because performance on a Surface outside of the same basic tasks you’d do on an iPad sucks. Anything more and the thing starts to sound like a jet engine and slows down. Which brings us right back to thermals. Just because the hardware can do something doesn’t mean it should. What the iPad Pro will leverage on the M1 is it’s GPU. It’ll continue to be great for artists and content creators that need small and light devices that are capable of things a laptop can do without the overhead and bulk of a laptop. It’ll eat up all those CPU cycles, don’t worry. The screen resolution will help with that. And man is that display going to be gorgeous.

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> Raven Gives A Masterclass In How To Do Patch Notes

Raven really did an incredible job with the patch notes for Season 3 of Warzone / Cold War. The Assault Rifle section in particular is loaded with notes like these:

  • Cold War AK-47
    • Recoil pattern has been adjusted

    • The recoil pattern on the Cold War AK-47 had made its downsides far more apparent than its upsides. We have smoothed out its recoil to make it easier to control. If you are accurate, or skilled at recoil control you will now find the Cold War AK-47 quite effective at most ranges.

This particular bit caught my attention though:

> Shots Fired

The Verge’s announcement on the new Microsoft Surface 4:

Microsoft is refreshing its Surface lineup with the Surface Laptop 4 today, which now offers the choice between AMD or Intel processors across both the 13.5- and 15-inch models. Both sizes will ship with Intel’s latest 11th Gen processors or AMD’s Ryzen 4000 series processors. Microsoft is shipping its Surface Laptop 4 on April 15th in the US, Canada, and Japan, starting at $999 for the AMD model and $1,299 for the Intel version — a $300 price gap between the pair. The difference in pricing likely comes down to the fact that Microsoft isn’t using AMD’s latest 5000 series CPUs here. Instead, Microsoft is using AMD’s Zen 2-based chips for its AMD Ryzen Surface Edition processors. Despite this, performance between the Intel and AMD versions could be rather similar, but we’ll have to wait for full reviews to judge how Microsoft’s choices have landed. These processor improvements allow Microsoft to promise up to 70 percent more performance over the Surface Laptop 3, and some (on paper) battery life gains. Microsoft is promising up to 19 hours of battery life on the 13.5-inch AMD model and up to 17.5 hours on the 15-inch version. The Intel-powered 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 4 is rated up to 17 hours of battery life, while the larger 15-inch model hits 16.5 hours.

So the AMD versions are cheaper, have a slightly longer battery life, and performance is most likely comparable even though its the older Zen 2 architecture. Got it.

Me, two weeks ago:

The M1 is beating Intel not just in pure clock speed but also in two things that are incredibly important in low to midrange computers5, like the ones shown in the ads: thermals and power draw. […] Even though the only thing I truly worry about are the thermals on my Mini, this matters way more when looking at laptops. More power draw means less battery life and hotter laptops. Hotter laptops mean fans kick up and sound like jet engines. While none of this is important enough for me to run out and replace my Mini. However if I had to replace my 2013 Macbook Air sporting a 1.3 GHz i5 with a current model, Intel or M1, Which one do you think it would just make more sense to go with? Certainly not Intel.

Also:

However, if AMD can show they have the same stability as Intel and get their branding together they can easily put Intel in a very dire position. A cursory glance at Dell’s website shows they don’t even have to compete on price.

Even though I was talking about M1 there we’re starting to see this shift with the Surface refresh. Numbers don’t lie.

AMD might not need to get their branding together in the traditional sense. If they can prove these things and prove them quietly through things like the Surface, why not?

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